Page:Inter America Vol. 6.pdf/58



HERE was a young of very brilliant coloring that was wont to chirp at the foot of an ant-hill. She only stopped when she was tired; and then her diversion was to observe the laborious ants in their endless task of the hampers of Antborough.

After a while, however, the good weather passed, and then came the fine rains of January. All the animals, huddled, lay tucked away in their warrens, waiting until the frightful downpour should cease. The poor balm-cricket, shelterless in her withered crevice, decided to seek help of some one.

Hobbling along, with one wing dragging, she made her way to Antborough. She knocked.

Up came a shivering ant, swathed in a cotton kerchief.

“What do you wish?” she said, examining the crestfallen beggar, covered with mud, and coughing, coughing. ..

“I came in search of shelter. The never stops, and I. .. .”

The ant eyed her over and over from head to foot, wrinkling her brow:

“And what were you about in the good weather, that you did not build a house of your own?”

The poor balm-cricket, shivering, replied, after a spell of coughing:

“I sang, you know quite well. . . .”.

“Ahem! . . .” exclaimed the ant, recollecting. “It was you then that sang in this dead tree while we were running back and forth storing the hampers.”

“The very one; it was I. .. .”

“Come in then, little friend! Never shall we be able to forget the good hours your music afforded us. Your chirping entertained us and made our work light. We always thought how happy we were to have so charming a singer as a neighbor! Come in therefore, friend; here you have bed and board as long as the bad weather lasts.”

The balm-cricket entered, stopped and again became the singer of the shining sun and the blue sky; and the whole rainy season she enlivened Antborough by the vibrations of her music.

Later, when the sun reappeared and the balm-cricket departed, all the young ants confessed, with sad longing, that it was the pleasantest rainy season they had ever spent.

HERE was, however, a bad ant that could not understand the balm-cricket, and she coldly drove her away from her door. This took place in Europe, in the middle of winter, when the snow covered the earth with its mantle of ice.

The balm-cricket, as was her wont, sang without ceasing throughout the livelong summer. When winter came, she found herself in need of everything, without a house to shelter her, and without as much as a bite to eat.

Desperate, she knocked at the ant's door and tried to borrow—borrow, mind you!—some miserable scraps of food. She would pay. She would pay, with loud oaths, for the food lent her, as soon as the weather would permit.